


bless the broken road

by the_queenmaker



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_queenmaker/pseuds/the_queenmaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her father had wanted a boy. That’s where all the trouble had started</p>
            </blockquote>





	bless the broken road

**Author's Note:**

> \+ I was watching my Zoe Saldana movie folder and I kept thinking that if Beast had been born a female, she would’ve been built like the [Na’vi](http://i53.tinypic.com/2vt9p1d.jpg) from Avatar. That one thought spawned an entire fic. Enjoy!
> 
> \+ The title is based off a [song with the same title](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZp6pmgbZyU). It's country and incredibly sappy, but it fits.

Her father had wanted a boy. That’s where all the trouble had started, he wanted the dream: a wife, two children (the second could be a girl, but the first had to be a boy so he could show his wife how to properly raise a child), and a white picket fence. She had thrown quite a wrench into his plans when she popped out and took her mother’s life in exchange. He still named her Hank and every time he said her name was like an accusation.

She was a child any other parent would have been immensely proud of—she was smart, athletic, and well-behaved. She was quite the accomplished gymnast too—she was physically fit, incredibly flexible, and impossibly balanced, capable of releases only the men performed–until she turned twelve and woke up one day to the discovery that her feet had decided, all on their own, that they would rather be hands. Her father had not allowed her to see a doctor.

“Do you want the entire town to know about your—“ his face twisted like he was saying a bad word—“ _feet_?”

So she had thrown herself into her schoolwork, excelling even faster now that her energy was redirected. She left for college only one year later. Her father had taken a new wife by then, and before she left, he had made her promise never to visit.

Later in life, she would always be thankful to her father for showing her just how cruel the world could be.

//

She liked a boy once.

His name was Samuel and his family was the only Chinese family in town. She was fascinated with his intelligence and relative sophistication compared to the football-throwing loudmouths that the other boys were, and he was fascinated by her fascination.

She went over to his house one day for help she didn’t need on a school assignment that she could do in her sleep. His mother politely had asked her to remove her shoes. It was a mortifying experience, she spent the entire time curling her toes inward, hoping that no one looked closely enough to see the movement in her socks.

She never spoke to him again and never looked at another boy that way again. The rejection would’ve been too much, and no matter how strong her body became, her heart was still so terribly fragile.

//

She could’ve gone a more lucrative route working with nuclear energy, but she had chosen this facility because of its potential mutant connection. It took her nearly three years to get promoted to a senior lab technician, twice as long as she was probably capable of. Her colleagues were all male and found a need challenge her constantly; even when her research proved time and time again that her theories were faultless.

It became a rite of passage for all the interns and incoming associates to flirt with her and joke about her response (or lack thereof) afterward. They talked behind her back. They kept her locked out of their conversations on the pretense of ‘keeping it clean for milady’, but none of them were gentlemen.

She got through it all with her head held high but sometimes, she thought of how much easier life would be if only she had been born with a penis.

//

“How wonderful,” the man said excitedly, grasping Hank’s hands in an unexpectedly firm handshake. The value of his character went up considerably in her mind. “Another mutant already here; why didn’t you say?”

His stock dropped considerably at that, but she forgave him because he introduced Raven in to her life. Raven, who is like her, who told her she was amazing even after seeing her for what she was, and who understood how critical it was for mutants like them to find a cure for their abnormal appearance.

The man they brought with them, the one with the hard eyes, on the other hand, Hank stayed far away from.

//

Angel was the first one to join, and she was also a beautiful girl. Then came Armando who smiled politely, then came Sean who looked like a puppy with his floppy hair, and then came _him_. The first thing Alex Summers said to her was an incredulous: “Your name is _Hank_? How about I just call you—”

“My name is Hank,” she had interrupted stiffly, withdrawing her hand as though she had been burned. After that, the names kept coming, even after Shaw penetrates the facility and they lose Darwin and Angel.

“He’s just being a boy,” Raven had said knowingly, the first moment they had been allowed to breathe, surrounded by debris and three very worried adults.

No, he’s not, Hank wanted to say. Boys did not pick on Hank the way they picked on pretty girls. When boys picked on Hank, they were cruel to her the way they were cruel to the smallest boy on the playground.

In the end, she didn’t tell Raven anything. Raven has only ever wanted been caught between _looking_ human or mutant, she didn’t know what it was like to actively hate being a woman in a man's world.

//

There was a science lab on the second floor, just _sitting_ there collecting dust. She was simultaneously horrified and enthused to see the vials of chemicals and extensive amounts of machinery available to her.

She briefly entertained thoughts of marrying Charles just for permanent access to this lab. She did not think it quietly enough, but Charles merely laughed as he patted her on the shoulder. “No need for that,” he said amusedly. “It’s yours if you want it; just try not to blow anything up.”

It was strange, she had never quite belonged anywhere, but less than a day in this mansion and she already thought of it as home. She wondered what that said about her.

//

She threw herself into her work with the same reckless abandon she always did when she fixated on any single project: wings for Sean, some kind of energy-channeling tool for Alex, and full bodysuits for the rest of them. It wasn’t long before Charles approached her, to remind her that her physical self needed training too.

She had wanted to protest, but knew that Charles was fair to everyone in his expectations, so however reluctantly, she complied. She was woefully out of shape and her soft tennis shoes were so very uncomfortable.

“If you ever want to beat me,” Charles said, looking pointedly at her feet, “you need to set the beast free.”

Grudgingly, the shoes came off and she got a chance to stretch her toes in the open sunlight for the first time in nearly a decade. It was an incredible sensation, she felt as though her feet barely touched the ground. She had never let herself go like this, and she felt free and alive and everything amazing.

“Good job there,” Alex said, popping out from nowhere. “All you need now is a big rubber nose, eh Bozo?”

Something twisted painfully in her chest and her toes curled back in. How quickly he had turned a wonderful moment into something ugly, she thought resentfully.

“I’m done here,” she said shortly. When she returned to the lab after dinner (in which she pointedly ignored Alex Summer and all his unsubtle name-calling), she found the keys to the gymnasium downstairs and a note from Charles reading: “don’t give up.”

//

She had kept her hair long all these years because she had reasoned it would be easier to let grow out and pull into a bun than to cut it short and having to let it grow out before cutting again. Her hair was the one thing about her that was overtly feminine and she took great pride in it, as silly as it seemed, because even if she kept it tucked away, she knew it was there and that it was beautiful.

Raven was the first one to find out about it, nearly jumping out of her skin when Hank came out of the shower one day with her head uncovered.

“Oh my gosh, Hank, your hair!” she had blurted out. “It’s so pretty!” And Hank had consented to be her doll when she asked. It was the most unusual experience, having someone else groom her. Her father had never tolerated her playing with dolls and her natural intelligence and shyness alienated her from girls her own age.

Raven tied her hair into complicated braids, and it took her a good half-hour given with the amount of hair she had to work with. “Why don’t you keep it down?” she asked hopefully, running her fingers up and down the finished product. “You would look so much…”

“It’s not practical,” Hank said, releasing the tie and twisting it all back up.

“Then why do you keep it?” Raven asked curiously.

Hank was silent for a long time. “My mom had long hair,” she said quietly. It was the first time she really thought about it and, she thought, the only time she would ever be so honest about it.

//

She split her time neatly in thirds, two for the lab and one for gymnasium. Charles’s equipment is old but sturdy. She was pleased to note that tumbling and aerials still came easily and even more so when she realized how much more she was capable now that she had the equivalent of four arms.

Raven sat in with her, lifting weights or just watching as Hank threw herself in the air or simply suspended herself in handstands on a bar twelve feet from the ground. Hank’s mind was always too restless for beam exercises, but she excelled at everything else required simple athleticism. Every once in a while, Charles would drop by and pay a few compliments, smiling fondly at the both of them, but no one else really disturbed the girls when they were working out.

Then one day, Sean walked in for a dumbbell just as Hank completed successfully a full-twisting double layout.

“Holy crap!!” He exclaimed. She had stopped her routine immediately, feeling very self-conscious, but he was mostly in awe. “That was amazing, do it again!!” Flushing pink from the waves of admiration, she had obliged him.

Alex, on the other hand, had walked in one day (when he was supposed to be in the bunker) just as she flubbed a relatively simple dismount. “C’mon, you can do better than that,” he had smirked at her from the doorway, arms crossed. “Do it again.”

Raven would probably snap at him, something sharp and witty, and Alex would throw up his hands in mock defeat and saunter away. But Hank wasn’t Raven, and the only thing she could do was turn her head and walk away.

//

“I have complete and utter faith in you.” Charles said aloud to Alex. To Hank, he whispered directly into her mind, _and if you will Hank, stay where you are_. She didn’t know what expression was on her face, but she was pretty sure it was the exact opposite of the good professor’s.

Alex glanced back and forth between the mannequin and her, and she was surprised to note the level of actual, real anxiety on his face. Of course, the expression evaporated with a triumphant laugh the moment he finally managed hit the damn thing.

“Am I still a bonehead?” she burst out, heart racing when she realized she was still alive and in one piece.

“Yeah, you’re still a bonehead,” he said. “But nice job.”

//

In the end, it was all Raven’s fault; Raven who borrowed all her rubber bands and never put them back where they belonged. She fastened her hair with a clip that day, but its holding power was far inferior and over the course of her workout, her hair comes loose. That’s how Alex Summers found her, just as the clasp slipped off the last inch and flew across the room and landed at his feet.

Of course.

He whistled as he bent down to retrieve the clip, all the while keeping his eyes trained on her. She wasn’t comfortable with the look in his eyes—she had seen it before, but never directed at herself.

“Can I have it back?” she finally asked after what felt like an eternity of them just staring at each other.

“No.” He said, the challenge issued forth with all the delicacy of a thrown gauntlet.

“Why not?” She asked, trying not to sound frustrated. She rarely fought back in such trivial battles, but she couldn’t understand what Alex would want with a long gold butterfly clip.

“Because,” Alex said slowly, “I won’t get to see you like this otherwise.”

Hank was beginning to that he was karma repaying her back for every bit of knowledge she accumulated over her lifetime. Quantum physics and string theory were a cakewalk compared to Alex Summer and the confounding _looks_ he kept giving her.

“Fine, keep it,” she mumbled. In the end, she couldn’t fight her natural instincts and in the event of fight or flight, flight always won. What she didn’t expect was for him to reach out and grab her wrist mid-flight and pull her back toward him, unpredictably gentle.

“Here.” Instead of simply handing it back to her, he lifted a lock of hair just above her ear and slid it into place. Hank suddenly remembered where she had seen that maneuver before: it was in one of the movies her old baby-sitter used to watch, the one with the girl whose sweetheart was going to war. Just before he left he had redone her hairpin—“such a boy’s way of doing it,” Mrs. Smithson had cackled. “She’ll take it out the moment he leaves the screen, you’ll see”—and gazed at her like it was the last time they would see each other.

She dropped her eyes and pulled away, and Alex let her go. She’s back in her room before she realized her heart was racing out of her chest, and she had no idea why.

//

The Halcyon days come to an abrupt end with President Kennedy’s announcement. Hank finished the serum the night before they’re set to go to war, and she expected Raven to share her excitement. What she did not anticipate was for Raven to turn on her and say: “Why do we have to change to fit society? We shouldn’t do it.”

“I thought, of all people,” Hank said, betrayed, “of all people, you would understand.”

Raven reached out, clearly upset. “Don’t you understand? You’re beautiful, just the way you are.”

“I don’t care about being beautiful!” Hank yelled out, raising her voice for the first time. “I just want to be normal!!”

She stormed out of Raven’s room, box in hand, and raced back to her lab, her sanctuary, mentally going back over every single formula, every sequence of Raven’s DNA, every equation she had used that had gone into the creation of the cure. It was all flawless. It would work perfectly. It had to.

//

It didn’t work.

Her skin was now blue, just like Raven’s, but where Raven’s skin was dark and scaled, hers was a lighter color, and smooth like an amphibian’s. She had always had a decent amount of muscle, even when she thought they should’ve atrophied from disuse, but now they are more pronounced than ever. Her eyes turned yellow, her ears now went into a point, and her nose looked as though someone had flattened it. Her hair had broken free of its restraint, and she knew now that it would never consent to being bound again.

She didn’t even look human anymore. One look at her reflection and she ran again—this time, she noted miserably, she felt as though she were flying through the air.

//

“It didn’t work,” she said, taking care not to look at anyone except Raven. They were ready to fight a war and she was despairing over her appearance. How proud her father would be at this moment.

“No, you’re perfect,” Raven said with a smile, touching her arm gently. “Don’t you understand? This is who you were meant to be the whole time. No more hiding, okay?”

Hank could accept those words from Raven, because Raven understood what it truly meant to hide. When Erik, whose mutation was contained within his very normal exterior, tried to offer the same sentiment, she felt an unnatural burst of anger. In one fluid motion, her fingers closed around his throat—they were longer now, and she knew she could crush this man’s windpipe if she so chose.

“Don’t patronize me,” she hissed, even as Charles objected some paces away. “I know exactly what I look like, _don’t you dare_ \--“

“I think you look amazing.” Her gaze flickered to Alex, who was easily the most ‘normal’ looking mutant among them. They were now the exact same height. “In fact, I think I have a new name for you...”

//

Nobody saw this, but for one terrifying moment when they thought the missiles were going to annihilate them on that Cuban beach, Alex Summers had turned her face toward him with both hands, and kissed her.

//

The atmosphere was grim, to say the very least, by the time they finally returned to the mansion. They had prevented World War III, but Charles had lost his sister, his best friend, and the use of his legs all in one afternoon. Such a high price one person had to pay for their ideology, Hank thought bitterly.

Charles had asked to be alone, and after depositing him on his bed, Hank found that she had no idea what to do now. She couldn’t go back to her room, knowing that she couldn’t stop by Raven’s room on the way. She couldn’t go to the lab because she had unwisely totaled it in the midst of her transformation. So that’s how she ended up in the gymnasium, back up against the mirror hugging her legs that were longer than before.

The last time she had been in here, she had tried mounting the beam, and even her balance couldn’t compensate for her awful technique. She ended up hanging upside down from the beam and generally being very silly as she attempted to get back on top of it without touching the ground. Raven had nearly reverted to her blue form, she was laughing so hard. When Hank finally corrected herself and did a single flip off, thrusting her chest and arms out for show the way she’d been taught, Raven had scribbled a 100 a piece of paper, hastily adding a decimal point when Hank dryly informed her that it was based off a scale of ten.

It was a bigger house now that Raven was gone, and she felt the loss of her friend keenly.

“Hey.”

Alex was hovering in the doorway, looking unsure

“Hey,” she replied. Her voice was deeper and raspier than before. If she had to be honest with herself, it sounded right. She felt right in this body, but because she had never once felt right before, she didn’t know how to handle it.

Alex bit his lip. “Can I come in?”

She thought about sending him away, but she lost Raven (and Charles lost Erik), and though she learned long ago how easily people could come in and walk out of your life, she never quite learned how to cope when you didn’t want that person to go. She patted the ground beside her and Alex jogged in, looking terribly relieved.

“You’re still in your flight suit,” he said.

“So are you.” She traced the area where his chest plate should’ve been. “What happened here?”

“Lost it,” he said with a sheepish shrug. “Looks like you’ll have to make me a new one.”

“I guess so.”

They sit there, side by side, until the last of the sunset was washed away by moonlight. Her breath was coming faster and her heart was beating out of her chest again. This time, there was nothing else to blame it on, no tumbling exercise, no exhilarating new discovery, no missile warheads blotting out the sky—all the factors had been eliminated, except…

She ventured a peek at the blond beside her, just as he turned to her and opened his mouth to speak. They froze, both of them wanting but hesitant. It was Alex who finally moved, leaning forward and capturing her lips with his own. She gasped a little, and the sound encouraged him. He pulled her against him so she was in his lap, knees aside his waist against the hardwood floor.

“Oh thank god,” he whispered haltingly in the moments they took to catch their breaths. “I was so _fucking_ …all I could think about…was how everything was gonna go wrong and I would never get to do this…”

She was dizzy and color was swimming behind in her eyes. Her heart was pounding, but so was his, and it was all kinds of brilliant to realize that they were able to make the other person feel the same terrible, trembling feeling.

“ _Fuck_ , Hank.” He was hard against her thigh. She realized a moment before he did when it was about to happen and she jumped forward into a handstand just as he sent a burst of plasma forward. It knocked one of the ceiling lights down with a shuddering crash. The look on Alex’s face would be comical if he didn’t quite look so horrified.

He was going to bolt. She had felt that look in her eyes too many times not to be able to recognize it and on impulse, she fell forward, effectively trapping him against the floor. He avoided eye contact, and she didn’t need to be a telepath to know how he was feeling.

“No more running away,” she said softly. _Not from the world, not from Raven, and not from each other._ Her hair fell forward and he twisted his fingers around the thin braids.

“I think you’re beautiful,” he said quietly. “Even when you were in your lab coat and I called you bunhead, I still couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

All of those confounding _looks_. She felt as though she could burst out laughing, but instead she leaned down and kissed him again. At the end of the day, they were still alive and together, and in the upcoming years of living as a mutant in a hostile human world, they would learn to count their blessings.

[ tbc ]

\+ I was watching my Zoe Saldana movie folder and I kept thinking that if Beast had been born a female, she would’ve been built like the [Na’vi](http:<center>//</center>i53.tinypic.com/2vt9p1d.jpg) from Avatar. That one thought spawned an entire fic. Enjoy!

\+ The title is based off a [song with the same title](http:<center>//</center>www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZp6pmgbZyU). It's country and incredibly sappy, but it fits.


End file.
